Weeping Tulpa
by Quatre Winner
Summary: A tulpa is an idea brought to life by belief. Sam and Dean come across another tulpa, this one ripped from a popular TV show. Set during Supernatural season 9.
1. Chapter 1

Hi everyone! Loki is giving me a hell of a time and, with the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special done and over with, I thought it time to write a plot bunny that has been gnawing on my brain for ages. So, we have this. The chapter's short, because I felt like making it short, and the fic overall is short. I just wanted more time to edit the rest of it before putting it out there in the world.

So, the usual. I don't own Doctor Who or Supernatural. This is just something weird that my brain popped up with. Warnings are for usual Who scary imagery and the like.

* * *

"Did you watch it? Did you see it?" the giddy voice on the other end of the phone asked. It was a female voice, one that was nearly unintelligible for the excitement in it. "Anything that bears the image of an angel becomes an angel! Oh, that's awesome, isn't it? It adds a whole new layer of nightmare fuel to the series!"

Miranda Thyme sighed and rubbed her forehead. "You know I don't watch Doctor Who." She glanced out the window at the statue across the street, then returned her attention to her cell phone. "I'm putting you on speaker, okay? Don't say anything you wouldn't say to your mother."

There was silence on the other end of the line as Miranda set the phone down and picked up her brush. "You can put your tongue back in your mouth now," she said pointedly.

"How do you always know?" her friend pouted. "Anyway, I recorded it. You can watch it when we hang out tomorrow. It'll be awesome, I promise! You like horror movies, right? This is just a PG-rated thriller!"

Miranda snorted. Hair sorted, she picked up the phone again and walked to the window. Instead of lowering the blinds again, she frowned. "The statue outside my window. You remember it, right?"

"Oh come on, you're not even trying that, are you?" her friend asked in disbelief. "I know it's just a show."

The statue was of an angel, that much was obvious. The granite wings were wrapped around a lithe, female form. The woman in the middle was fully carved. The opening at the bottom of the statue, under the wings, had been large enough for the sculptor. The way the statue was posed, the only bit of the inside that was normally seen was the hem of the woman's white robe and a teensy bit of face.

"I'm being serious," Miranda said. "Its wings have unfurled a bit."

"You're not being funny at all," her friend said.

Miranda looked at the statue harder. "It's been vandalized. Someone drew a whole bunch of symbols on the base of it. Poor thing."

She blinked, and in the space of that blink, the statue vanished. She leaned as far as she could with the window closed to try and see better. "I'm not being funny or trying to tease you," she insisted to her friend. "The statue's vanished. Wait a second."

"I don't believe you," her friend sighed. "This has gone way beyond funny."

Miranda switched to her camera and snapped a few pictures. "I'm sending you something. Look at them, please." She glanced away from the window to navigate to her text messages. When the messages were sent, she glanced at the window and shrieked. "Oh my god!"

"I'm going to bed. Have fun pretending on your own," her friend said.

"No, please, don't," Miranda begged. "The angels, tell me about them. You said that they don't move if you're staring at them?" She opened her eyes as wide as she could and stared at the hideous, fanged face that was hovering at her window.

"Just don't stare in their eyes," her friend sighed. "It could get nasty."

Miranda jerked her gaze away from the eyes and focused on the fangs. "That's not much better. Did you look at the pictures?"

"Yeah, it's a bad photoshop. You're not really going to convince me that the statue outside of your house has just come alive."

"I'm not going to convince you, then," Miranda said numbly. "What do they do?" She edged to her desk and set her phone down. Her eyes were watering from keeping them open, so she lifted a trembling hand to one and held the lid. She blinked her other eye furiously to moisten it again. She repeated the process with her other eye, but now she could barely see.

"They don't usually kill. They just send you back in time and let you live to death. They feed on the hole you left in the present, all the days you didn't live." Her friend's bored voice turned teasing. "You're plotting a prank on me, aren't you? I won't fall for it, you know."

Miranda's eyes burned, but whether it was from the not blinking or the tears streaming down her face, she couldn't be sure. "Mary, I'm not making this up," she whispered. "If you see that statue, just run, okay? I have to blink, I can't keep from it."

She closed her eyes. Glass shattered. The world went cold.

"Miranda?" Mary's voice called out. "Miranda, this isn't funny, pick up the phone. Come on, now. Miranda?"

All that was left in the room was a phone and a carpet full of broken glass.

* * *

It was a quiet night in the Men of Letters bunker, Sam sighed. He flipped listlessly through his book without really taking in the words. Too quiet. He glanced around at the walls, lined with books and trinkets. Normally his idea of a fun night was what he was doing. No case, no lore to read up on, just him and a book of his choosing.

Tonight, though, he felt restless. Dean was in his room doing things Sam really didn't want to think about too closely. He knew this because there was a sock hanging from his brother's door. He really wasn't going to pay too much attention to that. All he was going to do was look back down at his book and try to get drawn back into it.

Two minutes later, he sighed and closed the book. A walk sounded nice. He'd go for a walk, get some air, and get away from those things he wasn't paying attention to. With that in mind he avoided looking at Dean's door as he went to fetch his jacket.

He had his hand on the outside door, enchanted key in his pocket, when his phone rang. He picked it up to find a text message with only a handful of words.

_Canton, OH. Missing people. Urgent._

There was no sender. He frowned at the screen, then turned around and went to his computer. It took only a few keystrokes to load up a search engine. "Canton, Ohio," he murmured. "Ten people disappeared in the last week. Half of them have turned up, dead of… old age?"

He frowned at the screen and surfed a few other news sites. There was nothing connecting the victims, but in each case, they vanished. Some of their last locations showed signs of struggles. Others were as bare as if the person had just disappeared into thin air.

It was some of them turning up dead that puzzled him. There was nothing to indicate that their ages were magically induced. It was a case. He tried not to grin about it. People dying was never a good thing, but, he reasoned, at least they weren't violent deaths. The victims seemed to just live until their natural lives were over, somehow in a matter of hours.

Sam considered telling Dean about it immediately, then he remembered the sock on the door. It could wait until morning, he decided. With a goal in mind, he went back to his room and crawled into bed. They'd be leaving early.

The next morning, Sam showed Dean the text. "It just showed up," he explained to his brother. "I looked it up, though, and it's a legitimate case."

Dean looked over the news reports. "Any idea what we're dealing with?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "I haven't seen anything like it. There's been no word of shady poker players in town, and I don't know of any monster that does something like this. We need more details. Maybe a few of the other victims have shown up."

"Well, time's a-wasting," Dean said glibly. "Let's get driving.

"We have no explanation for what's going on, Agents," the tall, skinny police officer that greeted them at the precinct said. His name tag said Anderson. "The first disappearance was a week ago. Miranda Hebert, 23 years old. She was on the phone with her friend Mary Sanders when she disappeared. When we arrived on the scene, her window had been shattered from the outside. Her bedroom was on the second floor, and there wasn't any way to climb up to it."

"Is the crime scene still intact?" Sam asked. He jotted the names down on his notepad as he asked the question. Dean was looking around at all of the officers standing around. They were talking in hushed whispers. Every single one of them looked worried.

"Yeah, it is, but Miranda's phone is in evidence. Right before she disappeared, she took some pictures, but those pictures don't make sense." Anderson waved them forward. "I'll show you."

Sam frowned at the photo a few minutes later. "Someone stole a statue?" he asked. They were in the quiet of the evidence room now, no eyes staring at them.

"That's the thing. The markings are still there, a few volunteers are cleaning them off. We got pictures before they started, though. The statue itself is still there. No signs that it's been moved."

Dean grabbed those photos while Sam studied the one in his hands. "Lots of symbols," he muttered. "Why does that seem familiar?"

He kept his voice too low for Anderson to hear. Dean shrugged. "The statue is back in place in these," he said. Then he tensed. "Sam," he whispered. His voice held an edge of urgency to it. Sam looked at the picture slid his way and saw the same thing.

"We're taking these pictures," Dean said without preamble. He gathered them up into a folder and tucked them into his jacket. "Sam, we're done here."

"A Tulpa," Sam said in disbelief as they climbed into the car. "Someone painted that damn symbol again and now something is kidnapping people. Why?"

"What is it, first off?" Dean asked. He pulled the pictures out and stilled. "Sam, the picture's different."

Sam looked at the statue. It seemed innocent enough, but between the embrace of its wings he caught a glimpse of an eye. Before, the figure had been completely obscured. "This is freaky. You think it's like that painting?"

"Well, one way to find out. We only need the symbol." Dean grabbed the picture back and tore it in half. Once he had the symbol, he took out a pocket tube of salt and a lighter.

As they drove away, the picture smoldered on the pavement.

"We need to figure out what this thing is," Sam said once that was taken care of. The rest of the photos focused on the symbols on the base of the statue, rather than the statue itself. "Is it possessing the statue? We've seen that happen before."

"Those were mannequins," Dean corrected. "This is like someone made the statue come alive."

"A golem?" Sam guessed.

"Let's stop by Miranda's house and look for clay," Dean said. "Or anything else that it could be. We can get a good look at that statue too."

When they arrived, they found Miranda's friend Mary there. Dean went on ahead to search the bedroom while Sam talked to Mary.

"I thought she was joking," Mary sobbed. "I was telling her about this episode, right, and she started talking like the monster in it had come to life. It's a common thing among the fandom, you know? You post pictures of the monsters to scare other fans, quote the lines that give you chills." She looked at Sam mournfully and quoted, " 'Are you my mummy?'"

Her British accent was acceptable. Sam mentally set that aside. "So what monster was she telling you of?"

"The Weeping Angels," Mary said. "They're monsters that only exist when you look at them. They move as fast as you can blink. When they're across the room, they can be right in front of you after just one blink. Just one glance away and you're done for."

"What show is this?" Sam asked. If this was a tulpa, then it was a creature brought to life by the belief of the fans of the show.

"Doctor Who," she answered. "It really is a good show. You should watch it some time."

Sam smiled wanly. "I have a feeling I'll be watching it very soon."

Mary beamed. "I can write down all of the Weeping Angel episodes for you. I'm not current on the show, but I know all the episodes." She scribbled titles on a piece of paper and handed it to him. Then she sobered. "I think that Miranda was taken by an Angel. The last thing she did was tell me to watch out for that statue outside her window."

"Angels don't exist," Sam automatically assured her. "Don't worry, we'll figure out what happened to her."

"It's the only explanation," Mary insisted. "She vanishes while talking about a statue, and then she turns up dead a few days later and a couple decades older? Watch the show," she insisted. "The Weeping Angels didn't exist, but something's brought them to life. I'm going to stay as far away from statues as I can."

Sam handed her a business card. "Call me if you think of anything else," he said.

She walked off and disappeared around the corner. Sam readjusted his pocket and winced. "I think I gave her the wrong card," he sighed.

"Sam?" Dean called from upstairs. Sam ran up the stairs, hand on his gun. When he arrived in the room, he saw Dean staring out the window, phone in his hand. The room was small, a single-size bed in the corner and a computer with desk facing the window. The window had no glass in it, and the floor was covered in shards.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Something really freaky just happened," he said. He handed the phone off but didn't take his eyes off the window.

It was Dean's voice mail. "Sam?" a vaguely familiar voice asked. "Sam, this is Mary. Don't bother trying to call me back. It's the angel's MO – send me back far enough so that I can catch up to the present just in time to die. I'm feeling so weak already. I don't know if I'll make it through this call."

Sam felt the lump in his throat but kept listening.

"It is an Angel. They are real. I just finished talking to you a minute ago, and the statue across the street grabbed me. It sent me back in time sixty years. At least I got to see the original Doctor Who," she said wistfully. "Anyway, I just wanted to warn you. I held onto your business card all this time. I also have another message for you."

Sam raised an eyebrow but kept listening.

"When a creature is brought to life from nothing, it must follow the rules of this reality. I was told to tell you, every monster has a weakness, and the Angel is just another monster." There was a sigh from the other end of the line. "Anything with a weakness can be killed. You just have to find what it is."

"Do you know what she's talking about?" Dean asked. "I got that message before you finished talking to Mary."

Sam listened to the last little bit. "Anyway, I can feel my time drawing near. Goodbye, Sam. Tell your brother goodbye for me too."

The line clicked dead. Sam handed the phone back. "It was a voice mail," he said bitterly. "She got the timing wrong. You got that message before she even left the house. If you'd have picked up your phone, we could have saved her."

"Hey, don't you dare blame me for it," Dean said darkly. "I hate time travel, have I mentioned that? If it has happened, then it will happen. What did she tell you before she left?"

Sam sighed. "We need to watch some TV."


	2. Chapter 2

Another short chapter, whoo! Well, maybe not "whoo," exactly, but eh. I think the last chapter or two will be longer, but I'll just have to see as I edit it more. For now, here we go!

Warnings are the same. Watch for some MSTing courtesy of Dean.

* * *

"Oh come on," Dean grumbled, halfway through the popcorn and their first episode of Doctor Who. "She's not even looking at you! Why aren't you going after her?"

They were back at the motel. A stop at a DVD store had yielded several seasons of Doctor Who. Sam had double checked the episode titles to make sure they had the right seasons of the show. Now they were settled around Sam's laptop to watch. Sam was sitting at the table with the computer while Dean lounged around on Sam's bed.

Sam sighed and rubbed his head. "Dean, it's a TV show."

"Not anymore. We need to know these things," Dean sighed. He waved at Sam impatiently. "Hit up the internet and see if you can find an explanation."

"After the show. They might explain it during." Sam snagged the popcorn from his brother and started chewing a handful. "Have to admit, this is pretty cool. If these Angels weren't stalking people in our world now I'd like this show."

"I'm just wondering where this Doctor Who guy is," Dean said. "Isn't that the name of the show?"

"Let's just keep watching," Sam sighed.

A few minutes later, Dean jumped from his chair. "That happened to us!" he insisted. "That Billy guy gave Sally a message."

"After getting sent back in time," Sam agreed. "So the Angels send you back in time and let you live your life, just out of synch." He winced. "Death is going to be pissed."

Dean shrugged. "If he doesn't like it, let him stop the freaking Angels and give us a break." He paused and glanced around, but there was no sign of an angry Death. He relaxed and continued watching the show.

The episode ended and, while Sam queued up the next episode, Dean leaned back in his chair. "Imagine," he said thoughtfully. "Living life in the completely wrong order. The Doctor met Sally before he even went back in time, but after all that stuff had already happened to her. It's got to be confusing."

The next episode was ready. Sam frowned at it. "Looks like this one takes place a while after the first. The Doctor's already regenerated."

"What now?" Dean asked.

"He's not human," Sam explained. "It's a way they keep the show going after an actor decides to leave. The Doctor gets a new face and a new personality, but he's the same guy, and the show keeps on."

"So, different guy, same character. Gotcha." Dean snitched some popcorn and settled back on the bed. "Well, let's watch. The longer we're here researching, the more time that Angel has to keep sending people back."

This Doctor was a lot more whimsical than the last guy, and Sam found himself disliking him. The previous actor always had a bit of seriousness about him, but this one's seriousness was more like a show. Every little thing he did seemed overdone, almost to the point of comedy.

"Good thing he doesn't exist," Sam said. "I'd be hard-pressed not to shoot him." He rolled his eyes as this Doctor started rambling on and on about an alien race with two heads.

"He seems like a nice enough guy," Dean commented. "His sense of humor needs work, but overall at least he cares." He shot Sam a pointed glance. "At least he's one of the few guys who actually does. He's more human than some people I know."

"I guessed what was wrong with those statues ten minutes ago," Sam pointed out. "He's supposed to be the smartest guy in the universe."

"Haven't you heard of drama?" Dean implored.

"Drama gets people killed," Sam said. He settled back and watched the rest of the episode. After the next one started, he said grudgingly, "Well, I wouldn't have thought of that."

"And none of the others caught on that the statues were supposed to have two heads," Dean said. "We do it too. Sometimes, we just overlook the details."

"At least we know what was wrong with that picture," Sam realized. "The one that the police took. 'The image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel.' So we can't even take any pictures of the thing to warn other hunters."

"Good thing I burned it," Dean said in satisfaction. "Why did that work?" he asked after a second.

"Remember Mary's message. The Angels have to follow our world's rules, and the pictures are, I guess, just possessed objects. We salt and burn them."

"Purified the Angel's image," Dean agreed. "Okay, so it's not all hopeless. We just have to figure out how to kill the Angel." As one, he and Sam turned back to the computer.

They continued watching the episode, and after it was over, the brothers sighed in unison. "Well, I don't think we can find a handy rift in space and time," Sam grumbled. "There's another episode."

"It takes place in America," Dean said after a minute. Then he stilled. "Dude, I am never visiting New York again."

"Me either," Sam said. "We'll need to put the word out to other hunters too. Keep the Statue of Liberty graffiti free."

After the episode ended, Sam shut off the TV and tossed the remote. "So, according to the lore," he said, waving at the TV, "we have two ways to kill the angels. The first way is one that we definitely won't be able to manage, not unless we pissed off a couple of our angels enough to rip open a hole in the fabric of the universe."

"And that's going to be confusing," Dean grumbled, "but we know we're not talking about those dicks with wings. The other way is to kill the Angel with a paradox. Get yourself sent back in time after you know you're already sent back in time, then get yourself killed before you can die in the present." He scowled. "Dude, time travel is confusing."

Sam shrugged. "It's all we've got."

"It's risky," Dean said. "And, if we go the paradox route, who's to say that when we kill ourselves in the past, the future will really be reset. You might just end up wiping yourself from existence."

"It's not like we're going to kill our child selves," Sam argued. "Look at the show. They committed suicide. They saw themselves die in the present, then killed themselves before they could get sent back to the past. So, we find an Angel's victim, then we kill them." He paused right after he said it. It had sounded better in his head.

"You're talking about killing an innocent person," Dean said. "I can't believe you just suggested that." He stood and glared at Sam. Despite his shorter stature, he managed to look quite intimidating.

"They won't remember it, if it goes well," Sam pointed out. It was a half-hearted defense and he knew it.

"Or, they could just die." Dean glared. "Things don't work the same here as it does in that world. For one, they were already out of their usual time zone. When they died in the show, they were blown back to the future." He waved around here. "All we would end up doing is killing them before they got sent back in time. The aged version of them would just cease to exist."

"You don't know that." Seam resisted the urge to pull on his hair. Then he sighed. "Maybe we should just leave it. It's not killing anyone outright."

"It's ripping them out of their lives and feeding off of them," Dean said. "It's hurting people, even if it's not physically. We need to stop that thing."

"All right. Let's get a good night's sleep, then go visit the homes of the victims. The ones where they died, I mean," Sam added.

* * *

"She was stalking herself," Sam murmured, picking up a few photos. They were in the bedroom of the first victim, Miranda - the second bedroom, where she'd been found dead. "That pretty much throws any 'she aged in a day' theories out the window."

The pictures were of her younger self at various points in her life. Sam sorted through the pictures and nodded. There were no pictures of the Angel, even from before it'd come to life.

"She definitely lived here," Dean called. "The fridge is stocked with food, and you can tell it's been ages since she cleaned."

"She'd been sick for a week before she died," Sam recalled the news reports. "She kept her first name but married and got a different last name." He glanced around the room. It was decorated like it was still the seventies. Yellowed wallpaper was peeling in the corner of the walls near the ceiling. The furniture was well cared for, at least. The only new thing in the house was a flatscreen TV.

"And no one pays attention to two people with the same name," Dean sighed. "There's nothing here."

"So what now?" Sam asked.

He and Dean regrouped in the living room, where they both paused to ponder. "We'll split up," Dean decided. "Look in each of the victim's homes. Maybe they left us a message."

"We haven't talked to anyone else yet," Sam pointed out.

"I don't have any better ideas, Sam. We'll call each other every ten minutes, or if we see that statue where it's not supposed to be." Dean grinned at Sam. "We'll be fine! No statue is going to beat us."

Two hours later, Dean's words laughed at Sam as he ran into a room and locked the door behind him. It was in the house of another victim. This one had died years ago and the house showed it. It was empty of furniture and there was dust and dirt everywhere. There was no knowing why this victim had died way earlier than the others when he was the third one sent back in time, but that wasn't important now.

Sweaty palms scrambled for the phone in his pocket. Dean's current number was on speed dial. Sam looked around the room as he put the phone to his ear. It was a room in the basement, he saw, and the only way out was the way he'd come in.

Dean picked up on the first ring. Before his brother could speak, Sam said, "Dean, I think it knows we're trying to kill it."

"Have you been running?" Dean asked. "What happened?"

"I went to one of the houses. I don't have time," Sam gasped. He gulped in air and tried to get his voice back to normal. "Dean, the statue, the Weeping Angel, it's after me. I've drawn lines of salt all around where I am, but I don't think it's going to help. I've lost my guns."

"Where are you?" Dean demanded. Over the line, Sam heard things rattling and slamming. "Which victim's house?"

Behind Sam, the door broke with a loud crash. He whirled around to see the white Angel, frozen in the act of bursting into the room. "There's no time," he said. Pawing through his pockets yielded nothing but a silver knife. He threw it, but it deflected from the stone. His eyes started watering from resisting the urge to blink.

"Sam, keep talking to me," Dean growled. "Don't you dare stop. I'm on my way."

Sam choked down an irrational laugh. "I'll find you again," he promised. "I have to blink."

He put the phone down, though he didn't turn it off. "I know what you are," he told the snarling Angel. Its frozen visage was a lot more terrifying in person. The television screen couldn't convey the raw fury present on that face. "I know you didn't exist a few weeks ago, but now you do. You have a choice, you know. Stop doing this. I know you have to feed on, what was it, temporal energy? Can't you get temporal energy from sending other things back in time, like cows? Birds live a long time, you could send them back and feed off of that. You don't have to kill humans."

"Sam, stop!" Dean shouted. His voice was thin and tinny, coming from the phone's speaker. "Just get out of there!"

"There's no way out for me, and we all know it," Sam said. "The best case scenario is that the Angel sends me back in time. You know what the worst is."

He didn't look around at the room he was in, because looking would mean that the Angel could move. His brief, frantic glimpse of it had not seen any windows or other doors. He sighed. "You and I both know how this goes," he said to the Angel. "I tried to kill you, so you're going to get me out of your hair. Just please, consider what I said. If you stop killing people, if you never kill another person again, then you'll be left alone."

Of course the Angel couldn't reply, and his eyes were watering so badly that he couldn't see. The blur of white didn't move.

"Goodbye, Dean," he sighed, and closed his eyes.


End file.
